Radioactive Water Found in Lab Tank

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: March 15, 1997

Adding to public concerns about the handling of radioactive materials at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, Federal energy officials said yesterday that they had found high levels of two hazardous radioactive substances in 750 gallons of water pumped from an old underground tank there.

Federal environmental officials and Suffolk County health officials stressed that the tainted tank posed no health threat to residents of surrounding communities because a well near the tank showed no signs that the tank's contents -- water laced with tritium and strontium -- were percolating into surrounding ground water.

But county health officials criticized the laboratory for the week-long lag between tests that revealed the problem and notification of the public. The tests were finished on March 7, but environmental and health officials for Suffolk County, New York State and the Federal Government were not informed until Thursday, and no public statement was made until yesterday.

The tests by laboratory scientists showed that the water contained strontium, a radioactive variant of calcium, at a concentration more than 280 times the Federal limit for drinking water. The water contained tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, at 17 times Federal limits for drinking water.

Tritium is the material found in January in a plume of ground water extending 1,000 feet south of a separate underground pool containing nuclear fuel. Mona S. Rowe, a laboratory spokeswoman, said there was no indication that the newfound tritium was contributing to the other plume.

Strontium is considered particularly hazardous because it can be absorbed into bone in the body, unlike tritium, which has a more fleeting existence.

The delay in revealing the test results violated no laws, according to several environmental officials, but it could intensify public distrust of the cleanup of the laboratory, said Dr. Mary Hibberd, the Suffolk County Health Commissioner.

''Unfortunately, this has been the pattern there,'' Dr. Hibberd said, referring to past delays in revelations about the separate underground plume of tritium and other discoveries of toxic hazards at the 50-year-old laboratory, which was declared a Federal Superfund site in 1989.

Dr. Hibberd also said she wanted to know why nothing was done about the tank after an inspection in 1991 found high levels of strontium.

Ms. Rowe said that laboratory officials were interviewing people who conducted the previous survey to find out ''what went wrong.''

Ms. Rowe also said that seven new test wells were being drilled to insure that no seepage from the tank would go undetected. The tank is one of dozens being methodically examined around the 5,300-acre campus of laboratories and reactors. It had once captured condensation dripping from ventilation and cooling systems around a graphite research reactor and the main reactor at the laboratory, Ms. Rowe said.

The water in the tank was first noticed in December, she said, during inspections near the graphite reactor.

Representatives of private environmental groups said the latest revelation fit a distressing pattern of delaying disclosure of problems, then downplaying findings.

Bill Smith, the executive director of Fish Unlimited, a private group based on Shelter Island, said the graphite reactor that Brookhaven officials believe was the source of the strontium in the tank was a clear problem throughout its operation, from 1952 to 1968, and that little has been done in the decades since to stop the flow of contaminants.

Dr. Hibberd said that the continuing revelations of problems with leaking radioactive materials at the laboratory ''are an area of legitimate concern'' for nearby communities. But she added that monitoring of underground water show no signs of any strontium in ground water and no signs that any tritium had flowed beyond the boundaries of the laboratory.

For decades, the Department of Energy operated Brookhaven and a related complex of other Federal research centers and nuclear weapons factories outside the bounds of pollution laws controlling industry, creating a long list of contaminated sites, many far worse than those at Brookhaven, across the United States.

The investigation of problems at the laboratory and its eventual cleanup are being overseen by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. Yesterday, Rich Cahill, an E.P.A. spokesman, said the strontium and tritium in the tank ''was the kind of thing you would expect to find during a thorough environmental audit of a facility that was run this way for two decades.''

Dr. Hibberd added, ''There are undoubtedly more surprises to come.''

Photo: Jason Renier, a worker at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, tested a well in January near the underground tank at the laboratory containing water contaminated by radioactive elements. (Michael Shavel)